Oberon Houston: Tory Reform Group (TRG) - Rebuilding Britain, Part I.

Despite the possibly misleading title of this fringe event, it had so much great stuff to report on, that I’ve had to reluctantly edit out: The lessons of Rwanda, and how that applies to the crisis in Darfur; what Tony got right in Sierra Leone and Kosovo, but wildly wrong in Iraq and Afghanistan; the continuing and increasingly desperate crisis in Burma and for that matter, of course, Zimbabwe; and why the UN is undermined by a lack of bi-lateral talks between major nations; no all that will have to wait, because at this event Sir Christopher Meyer said enough on one subject, ‘national interests’, to hog the whole report, more will follow on the great contributions from John Bercow, MP, and Andrew Mitchell MP (shadow International Development And Trade), both of whom completed the panel for this fringe meeting, however this report will focus what on Meyer had to say. If that’s not enough for you, how about what Meyer said regarding his book ‘DC Confidential’ to a member of the panel as they got ready to speak with my microphone running?

This fringe event comprises two separate panels looking at the task of ‘Rebuilding Britain’, the first event, held last night, and the subject of this report, looked at rebuilding our Country from an overseas and international perspective, the second event, to be held tonight, will deal with the same issue but concentrate on the issue from an internal viewpoint.

In an articulate, but remarkably frank speech, Sir Christopher Meyer had particular praise for Cameron, saying his position regarding international relations was:

“extremely sensible about how we in Britain should conduct our relations with the Americans; it is a measure of how things have shifted, how things have got out of kilter, imbalanced over the last nine years, that his speech has actually been attacked by the other political parties as an essay in Anti-Americanism, and indeed by some of the commentators in the newspapers.”

Meyer found this extraordinary, as he felt that Cameron was actually saying that we have had this friend and ally for many years, yet it shouldn’t be an uncritical relationship, in fact:

“The Prime Minister who got that relationship just about right was Margaret Thatcher… on the one hand she created a relationship of extraordinary trust and intimacy with Ronald Reagan… and on the other hand when she thought that the Americans were damaging Britain’s national interests, she never hesitated to get on the phone to the Whitehouse and storm ‘now look here Ron this won’t do’, and the extraordinary thing was the American’s respected us all the more for it.”

Summing up on the issue of the ‘special relationship’, he said that for too long our politicians and media have regarded this cliché as a convenient barometer of how our relationship with America was performing, and that although American diplomats appreciated the positive aspects of our relationship, they never lost sight of the vital necessity, for them, to protect at all times the national interests of the United States, something many on the British side often get confused about. He went on to reinforce the point that the ‘national interest’ was the only thing our diplomatic negotiations should focus on, and urged our foreign policy review team to recommend an audit of all our foreign policy efforts worldwide to ensure that the national interest was always and in all areas being pursued vigorously. Sir Christopher’s passion is obviously the steady erosion of British diplomatic negotiation skills in the face of exactly the opposite with regards to diplomats from the US, China and every other country for that matter not paralysed by self doubt.

Finally, as the panel were taking their seats I switched on my recorder, which was on the table in front of Christopher Meyer (they knew I was recording), and sat back down where I couldn’t hear the conversations going on. But I heard them when I got back to my hotel room, the most interesting bit was Andrew talking briefly to Christopher before the introductions were made:

AM:    I read your book, I really enjoyed it.
CM:    Nice, thank you.
AM:    I don’t know what all the fuss was about, I loved it.
CM:    Well (pause). Do you like the brittleness; of our masters?
AM:    You were very honest and open there.

More to come on the very good contributions of Andrew and John.

Comments

[James Hellyer]

Meyer's attempt to compare David Cameron's strategy with Lady Thatcher's is almost entirely bogus. In public Lady Thatcher supported Ronald Reagan. In public she was sympathetic to South Africa. It was behind closed doors that she made her opinions heard. As Pik Botha recently noted, it was that these concerns were raised privately by a friend that led them to be taken seriously.

By contrast, Cameron has made his criticism of America and Israel public. This gives the impression not that he's a "candid friend", but rather that he's playing to the gallery of public opinion.

[Oberon Houston]

I think Cameron was stating how things should work, not making a critisism, but rather talking about the word James.